11.30am Easter Mon 28th March, Beam Engine Operating Day

[Dave Eastwood (Gadgetman) - Club Chairman]

Heavy rain and hail here at the moment. A gap for a few hours forecasted, followed by more heavy rain this afternoon. Will review what it's doing in an hour, but I might just go for a local potter around if it's not to bad, instead.

[Martyn Vann - Warwickshire AO]

Still raining here at the moment but improving, we will wait a little longer so will not make the Wheatsheaf for 11.30 but will go directly to Middleton Top arriving between 12.30 and 1pm. 

[Julie Hall - WSCC AO Representative]

just the odd spit here so see you at middleton top at 12.30-1.00   GLEN

[TAFKARM]

Local potter for me as well I think. Have fun!

[Julie Hall - WSCC AO Representative]

Well I cannot blame anyone for not coming today, the weather was just foul. At Middleton Top it was freezing and until about 4.30pm it was showers and sunshine. Only at 4.30pm did we get the skies to clear properly. Did it stop us having a great time, well, what do you think?

 

We took some photo's at Middleton Top while waiting for Martyn and Sue to arrive.

 

 

The chimney to the engine house is in the background. The car park was almost empty, the up side of bad weather on a Bank Holiday is the empty roads and car parks. 

 

 

The engine house, built in 1829, that's nearly 200 years ago.

 

 

Martyn and Sue joined the photo shoot.

 

[Julie Hall - WSCC AO Representative]

The beam engines were running today, they are air driven now.

 

 

One of the two pistons. The second stone step has nearly 200 years wear on it, from where the operator used to stand on that step to look at the signal. An 80 year old man, who was in charge, told us, he was full of interesting little facts like that.

 

 

We had to have a little photo shoot outside the boilers

 

 

After our lesson in British industrial history we took the short journey to Ecclesbourne Railway, where the steam trains were running. We headed for the Pullman cafe as the rain really started lashing down.

 

 

 

When we came out it was back to sunshine so we went for a drive through Bakewell, up round and down the lovely Via Gellia road. That nicely landed us in Matlock Bath for some fish and chips to finish the day off.

 

 

A fantastic day out with a big, yummy thank you to Martyn and Sue for joining us. We are just sorry the awful weather meant the others were not part of it but thank you for expressing your intentions, it means a lot.

[Dave Eastwood (Gadgetman) - Club Chairman]

Sorry, all plans went out of the window, and it was back to following an ambulance to Macclesfield General again. Stable ish for the moment, though at one point we had a surreal moment in the A & E cubicle where everyone just looked at each other, dropped whatever they were doing and we raced the trolley down to intensive care for an emergency hit of Naloxone, (or something similar), turns out it looks to have been some kind of bad reaction to a morphine patch.

Ho hum.